Friday, April 18, 2014

So is the climate threat solved? Well, it should be. The science is
solid; the technology is there; the economics look far more favorable
than anyone expected. All that stands in the way of saving the planet is
a combination of ignorance, prejudice and vested interests. What could
go wrong?

I find the phenomenon of rhetorical tacticians constantly trying to change the topic of discussion from something important to something trivial to be truly crazy behavior. That would be you, #1 Anonymous

"Saving the planet" is a metonymy for keeping the planet suitable for habitation by +7 billion of us. It isn't a difficult concept. Does Anonymous bristle when a reporter says "The White House said today ..." because building don't actually talk?

I wonder if anyone recalls a book, maybe from about five or ten years ago which essentially had the rather bleak message that losing our present civilisation is likely for keeps?That our rapaciousness in using all resources means no near surface mineral deposits to power any post-apocalypse Iron Age II or Industrial Revolution II.At least, not with the oceans and continents in their current configuration.

I does help to speak specifically ( and falsifiably ) about what problem one expects ( and when ).

"'save the sand beaches of under 18 feet in height'."

At current rates, that would be in roughly two millenia - if you're signing up to solve possible problems two millenia from now, you have too much time on your hands.

"Global extinction event' sounds pretty delusional and crazy too"

Yes, I agree - particularly if you're trying to make the case that even a doubling of CO2would cause extinctions.

"suitable for habitation by +7 billion of us"

What precisely do you fear is reducing habitability? Humans inhabit all of the climates on earth.This is an empty 'argument'.

There is a pretty good argument the economic development iswhat's best for the environment - it is in the developed world that population is stable or declining ( by choice )- it is in the developed world that actual pollution is least

But I cannot abide the false ascription that CO2 and warmth are problems.

There is a pretty good argument the economic development is what's best for the environment

If you ignore the evidence, the entire bulk of scientific and technical knowledge, and the entire paleorecord. Your delusions are deep and irreversible. I wish extinction upon you and I'm convinced I will enjoy your mass dieoff in the very near future.

Anonymous makes two points : There is a pretty good argument the economic development iswhat's best for the environment - it is in the developed world that population is stable or declining ( by choice )- it is in the developed world that actual pollution is least

Not exactly a list of the world's developed countries. Japan is an obvious outlier and the only G20 nation in the group. The developed world does not have declining populations - they generally have *lower* population growth rates - but that is not the same as no growth or decline.

The second point confuses total emissions with trend. Higher income countries have a lower trend, but they still emit the most. It also ignores the fact that the reason they have a lower trend is they have outsourced many emission producing activities to lower income countries and then import the finished products.

chek makes a good point. The problem with climate change is not so much humanity drowning or burning up, but the fact that it diverts our attention from the real problem facing humanity: depletion of natural resources on a timescale that humanity cannot react, namely decades, and the sudden collapse of the high-tech global economy. A new mathematical model for civilization growth, collapse and recovery has been developed, called HANDY (Human and Nature Dynamics (HANDY): Modeling Inequality and Use of Resources in the Collapse or Sustainability of Societies) (http://www.sesync.org/sites/default/files/resources/motesharrei-rivas-kalnay.pdf). I find it a remarkable albeit top level model akin to early climate models. HANDY is based on four coupled differential equations that relate resources (natural and renewable), populations (2 types which I will called worker bees and drones to avoid preconceived notions) and wealth (that needed to maintain.feed the population and that squirreled away or of a type that cannot be turned into useful things to maintain the civilization). The applicability to model the qualitative aspects of the historical grow/collapse cycles I find impressive. The model unambiguously predicts the occurrence of irrecoverable collapse especially in a "closed" system. Chek is alluding to this so-called Type N collapse which, when looking at the model, qualitatively describes the state of the global economy today. Unlike previous recoveries, the recovery from a type N collapse will not have available to it the easily obtained energy sources (oil, coal, gas) that powered the growth (invention) of our current high-tech stuff nor the special natural resources (metals, K-based fertilizers and rare earth elements, etc.) needed to develop our current (magic) technologies. The best humanity might be able to do is to maintain a 18th Century economy and technology based on renewable biomass energy sources. Looking ahead a few dozen decades makes a meter or two of sea level rise just a nuisance compared to feeding 7+ b people. In such a scenario there won't be 7+ b people, though,very quickly. I suggest you take a look and read it even if you don't understand the equations. At least it will provide an interesting diversion from climate change models.

There's an 'epistemic community' effect here too: how better to build confidence in your 'truth' than to have it echoed by those you count as your peers? These 'facts' from the anonytroll are repeated over and over on the blogs preferred by the breed. Of course, it also helps to be able to play the Red Queen when it comes to the twists and turns!

You may wish to also consider Extinction Risk From Climate Change by Thomas et al, wherein the authors write: "...we predict, on the basis of mid-range climate-warming scenarios for 2050, that 15–37% of species in our sample of regions and taxa will be ‘committed to extinction’."

Remember, those numbers are based on warming *only* through 2050.

I would say that it's not only plausible - it appears to have already started.

AT: "Mal - and you believe unsubstantiated hand-waving about extinction because - why?"

Oh, I don't believe unsubstantiated hand-waving. I conditionally accept conclusions that are substantiated by evidence.

The evidence is out there, AT. All you have to do is take the necessary basic and advanced courses, read the body of literature, master the methods of research, attend some professional society conferences, publish a few papers, earn the grudging respect of your scientific peers -- you know, the usual grind. How else will you know whether you're fooling yourself or not?

Or, if you don't want to put that much time in, you could become at least meta-literate in Science, so you'll know how to tell reliable information from DK-afflicted nonsense. It'll still take some work, but the alternative is having your proud ignorance made fun of on blogs like this one.

"Your Honour, members of the jury, the untainted historical record clearly shows that forest fires have swept across the surface of the planet, and this country, for millennia; long before our species arrived on the scene, let alone my humble client. And yet the prosecution, and a few activist 'forensic scientists', would have you believe him guilty of arson!..."

Elefritz - if you want to extrapolate ANY trend far enough in the future, you can imagine an extreme. NY City streets were once filled with horse manure - imagine at that time extrapolating horse poop with today's population. But people stopped riding horse because they preferred cars.

The next degree or two of global warming are probably beneficial to most life forms, including humans.

And if you're looking beyond two centuries, you're in ignorance of everything else that will change.

Anon. has a point. As that Australian grad student cheerfully put it, we probably won't see the tropics rendered uninhabitable to mammals because before we got there civilization would probably collapse, ending significant anthropogenic carbon flux perforce.

Things take care of themselves, but not necessarily in the way that you might prefer.

Widening? I have no idea. Changing? Absolutely. Pakistan's crop failures (which I alluded to) extended to 3 years in a row. 2 due to flood. 1 due to drought. (What is Pakistani for "Pick a lane"?)

The menace due to temp and precipitation swings isn't confined to years of terrible catastrophe, but extends to the inability of farmers to plan for the future. Agriculture is the most conservative of industries because the most important input into the farmer's planning is the hope that this year will be like last year.

Our refuge so far, with +7 billion inhabitants, is how widespread agriculture is. A simultaneous failure of Russian and Australian agriculture wasn't as damaging as a simultaneous failure of American and Canadian crops. But we've only had .9C of warming. And it should be noted that one afternoon of record heat a couple of years ago killed corn in the field in Kansas.

The Indus valley has seen an assortment of civilizations, from Harappans to Huns, erased by water crises- hydraulic despotism has its limits , and if there isn't a drought or a flood, every know and again an earthquake will send a Himalaya or two crashing down into the valley way up North, shutting off the river for a year or three.

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Eli Rabett

Eli Rabett, a not quite failed professorial techno-bunny who finally handed in the keys and retired from his wanna be research university. The students continue to be naive but great people and the administrators continue to vary day-to-day between homicidal and delusional without Eli's help. Eli notices from recent political developments that this behavior is not limited to administrators. His colleagues retain their curious inability to see the holes that they dig for themselves. Prof. Rabett is thankful that they, or at least some of them occasionally heeded his pointing out the implications of the various enthusiasms that rattle around the department and school. Ms. Rabett is thankful that Prof. Rabett occasionally heeds her pointing out that he is nuts.